


the present seems unstable and the future unlikely

by spiekiel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Deception, Hugs, Instinct, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room, deprogramming, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 07:19:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4426379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiekiel/pseuds/spiekiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I think if we can trigger Barnes’ strongest instinct, it might be like hitting the reset button.  We can override the Winter Soldier’s programming.  Kill the mission.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the present seems unstable and the future unlikely

“I have an idea,” says Natasha, “but you’re not going to like it.”

 

Her hair is dyed black, sharp bangs changing the shape of her face.They pulled her from deep cover in Azerbaijan for this, for an unsanctioned operation hidden from a nonexistent agency in the bowels of a converted lighthouse in the north of France, for cold water seeping in through the soles of her boots in a maintenance tunnel, Steve and Sam and Rhodes standing around her in a circle.  

 

“We aren’t torturing him,” Steve says, “and I will take down anyone who tries.I already told Sharon - ”

 

“No, physical torture won’t work,” Natasha interrupts.She’s starting to regret some of the choices she made in Caracas, if they caused such a backslide in Steve’s opinion of her.“The Red Room teaches pain tolerance and mental compartmentalization, you could cut off one centimeter patches of his skin until you could touch his bones and he wouldn’t break.”

 

“That was…weirdly specific,” says Sam, at the same time that Rhodes offers, “The Army’s psychological interrogation techniques - “

 

“I said _no torture_ ,” Steve interrupts, voice low and dangerous.

 

“Won’t work,” Natasha says, ignoring him, because it isn’t like she was alone in Caracas.“The Soviets’ neurolinguistic probing methods during the eighties haven’t been matched by any other government in the world as far as I know.Plus, psychological torture relies on fear, which is the first thing the Red Room breeds out of its operatives.”

 

“Temporal disassociation, misdirection - “

 

“Won’t matter to a man who was frozen and thawed in irregular increments of days to years.”

 

“There are methods that target memory,” Rhodes says.“Wanda said that his memories are still there, if we can cause a regression.Invoke a happy memory, instead of - “

 

“He’s been out of the ice long enough that by now, he has access to all his memories, happy and sad.If I had to guess, I’d say that he’s had access before, too.But they have no bearing on the mission, and so they hold no importance for him.Even if he doesn’t know what the mission is anymore.The Red Room attacks instinct.Rewrites it.The reflex to run turns into the itch to have a weapon in your hand.Mercy for the helpless becomes bloodthirst.” 

 

Water drips from the saturated bedrock overhead.Steve crosses his arms over the Stark Industries logo on the chest of his sweatshirt.“What’s your idea, then?” he demands.

 

Natasha takes a moment to choose her words very carefully.“With children, you can shape instinct as it’s developing.With adults, it’s more difficult.Instinct can’t be erased, it can only be - crossed out, kind of.But the foundations that were laid during the asset’s formative years will always remain.

 

“I think if we can trigger Barnes’ _strongest_ instinct, it might be like hitting the reset button.We can override the Winter Soldier’s programming, kill the mission.”

 

Rhodes squints at Natasha with interest.Sam watches Steve warily as the Captain meets her gaze, posture slouched like he’s a much smaller man, a much longer time ago.“Okay,” Steve says, “how?”

 

•••

 

Steve thinks maybe Nat is enjoying this a little _too_ much.

 

Her custom-designed brass knuckles crack across his cheek bone, sending a spray of crimson across his vision.He turns his head to the side and spits blood on the concrete, rocking back up on all four legs of his chair in time to take an elbow to the neck.That sounds like a vertebra cracking out of place, and a second later - _fuck_ \- it feels like it, too.  

 

“Go over it again,” he requests, voice a low rasp of discomfort. 

 

Nat’s across the room, methodically unwrapping her hands.“I’ve seen the Winter Soldier stray from the mission objective three times,” she says.“Once, when I was fourteen, at a training facility in northern France.He panicked, started shooting at everything that moved.They told us later that it was just an exercise, but that was a lie.The second time, when I was nineteen, on a mission in Brooklyn.I didn’t realize it at the time, but being in a place so familiar to James Barnes must have had an effect on his programming.That was the most human I’ve ever seen him.”

 

Steve eyes the kitchen knife in Nat’s hand with some degree of dread.“And the third time?”

 

“The third time,” Nat says, pacing towards him predatorily, the knife hanging loosely from her fingers, “was six months ago, when he failed to kill you.”

 

She bends over in front of him.Steve’s only had eyes for one person for as long as he can remember, but he can still appreciate the aesthetic appeal of her tight jeans, the tiny smile she can’t quite keep back at the corners of her blood red lips.“This needs to be convincing,” she says, “the cuts will be shallow enough that they should heal in a couple of hours.But you need to scream.”

 

Steve can barely feel the sting of the blade, slicing through his shirt and the top layer of skin.He thinks of the most dangerous-beautiful boy in all of New York, who grew into the warmest and most loyal man in the world, who’s been kept awake for the past hundred and forty-four hours in a reinforced cell three levels up, who Steve wants more than anything in the world to hear say his name.

 

He screams.It feels good.

 

•••

 

There’s a gun pressed against the back of his head.  

 

He knows it’s loaded, he knows the safety is off, but he also knows it’s in one of Nat’s hands, so the rest doesn’t seem so important.In fact, the moment that the cell door swings open and Nat forces him inside, nothing seems so important as Bucky’s eyes, which are the same exact clear blue they’ve always been.He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it’s the biggest relief he’s felt since he saw Bucky alive.

 

The cell door closes behind them with a resounding slam.Nat kicks the back of his knees, and he goes down hard, the pressure of the barrel of the gun against his skull never wavering.Bucky’s gaze is tracking everything, never settling, like Stark’s surveillance nanobots whizzing around the ceiling.

 

“Skazhi mne, gde eto,” Nat barks, Russian like a growl at the back of her throat.Bucky’s eyes shift to her face very, very slowly.“Skazhi mne, gde ona yest, ili ya ub’yu yego.Desyat sekund.”  

 

Steve hopes he looks properly in distress.But this is the closest he’s been to Bucky since the Triskelion, and he imagines he can feel the heat radiating off him.  

 

“Desyat,” Nat snarls.“Devyat.Vosem - “

 

The metal arm is gone.They brought Lang in from Los Angeles to remove it - there was considerable nerve damage, Steve had to take the old lighthouse staircase all the way topside to breathe crisp sea air, get the image of tears rolling silently off Bucky’s face out of his mind.Now there’s just a stump at his left shoulder, the sleeve of his grey prison jumpsuit stitched closed.

 

“Sem, shest, pyat, chetyre - “

 

Bucky’s face has been scrubbed clean.Someone shaved his head when they brought him in.His cheeks are thinner than they should be after so long without proper nutrition, but the rest of his body is ropy with muscle.Steve knows from the surveillance footage that he’s been doing sit ups, one-armed push-ups.

 

“Tri - “

 

Nat pulls on the back of Steve’s shirt collar, chokes him lightly, makes his neck pull taut. Bucky makes a short, aborted movement, so slight it’s almost internal.His mouth is a thin white line.  

 

“Dva - “

 

Steve wants this to be over.He wants to take them both out of here, to somewhere safe, where there isn’t an intergalactic war to worry about, where the only thing that matters is making his boy smile again.Because it’s been seventy years since he last saw Bucky smile.Since Bucky smiled.

 

“Romanova,” Bucky’s voice sounds like sandpaper.His accent is Russian, and ice.“Otpusti yego.”

 

There’s a tense moment of silence.Steve feels beads of blood sliding down his chest.He breathes hard through his nostrils, his ears ringing with the buzz of the nanobots and his own pounding heartbeat.

 

Nat starts again, “Odin - “

 

A flurry of movement, so fast and precise that Steve can hardly follow it from his position kneeling on the ground.The gun disappears, Bucky slams Nat into the wall, slams her hand to make her drop the gun.She’s letting him, fighting back only so far as to not get hurt.By the time Steve gets to his feet, gets ready to help - _someone -_ the door is closing behind Nat as Rhodey pulls her quickly outside.

 

Bucky pops the clip out of the gun and drops both pieces to the floor.He turns to Steve.His gaze flick up Steve’s bloodied shirt, to his eyes.

 

Steve holds his breath. 

 

Bucky clears his throat.“Stevie.Are you - “

 

Steve hits him with a bear hug before he can finish getting the words out.Bucky’s arm goes around his shoulders automatically, his fingers digging in, weight bearing down like he’s still not used to being the shorter one.Steve ducks his face into Bucky’s neck, “I’m fine.I’m - Sorry, Buck.”

 

Bucky’s hand buries in his hair.“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” he murmurs.The Brooklyn twang is back.Steve could cry.“You ain’t never done nothin’ wrong, punk.”

 

For a long minute Steve can just hold him, like there isn’t another inevitable battle coming up on them, unstoppable and enormous as a glacier.Then, Bucky says, “How?”

 

And Steve says, “Your strongest instinct.”

 

Bucky squeezes him tight.“Oh.”

 

•••

 

“What the hell, Romanov,” Sharon says.

 

She’s coming down the hallway at a steady clip with Sam flanking her, in her CIA plainclothes suit.“What the hell are you thinking, leaving Steve in there with the Winter Soldier? Get him out - “

 

“Calm down, Carter, he’ll be fine.”Natasha wipes the back of her hand across her split lip, already beading with blood.“Barnes would never hurt him.Steve’s safer in there than he would be out here.”

 

“Are you out of your goddamned mind? Six months ago, the Winter Soldier dropped him into the Potomac, half-dead - “

 

“That was the Winter Soldier,” Natasha interrupts smoothly.“The man in there - “ she nods to the cell door behind her - “is James Barnes.”She takes a handheld tablet from Rhodes, pulls up the feed from Stark’s nanobots, and hands it over to Sharon.  

 

Sharon watches.Watches Captain America and the Winter Soldier tangled on the ground of a reinforced cell together, talking in low voices.Barnes is between Steve and the door, and Steve’s hand is running over and over again around the back of Barnes’ shaved skull, like he’s touching something sacred.“You broke his programming,” she observes.“How?”

 

“Barnes’ strongest instinct,” Natasha says, simply.

 

Sharon turns off the feed.“Which is what?”

 

Sam chuffs something that’s almost a laugh.Sharon looks at him.“Same as yours and mine, luckily enough.”

 

Natasha’s first instinct is always going to be to save her own skin, but she thinks maybe this little stunt has gotten her back on Steve’s good side.Given how important that is to her, she can sort of see where Sam is coming from.She hasn’t had such a desire to hold someone’s regard since she was twelve, on her first field mission in Cairo and introduced to an unfrozen Soviet relic.  

 

So she says, “To protect Steve Rogers.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
